


It’s Not Just About Who You’re Sleeping With

by starfishstar



Series: Brothers, Bitter and Sweet [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, a johnlock story of a sort, except not exactly, except that's kind of the point...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 06:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3199001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly has something to say about men who love each other. It’s hard to tell if Sherlock’s listening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s Not Just About Who You’re Sleeping With

**Author's Note:**

> A little character moment for Sherlock and Molly, inspired by [this thoughtful meta by professorfangirl](http://professorfangirl.tumblr.com/post/76141015862/so-if-tjlc-is-real-why-on-earth-would-the) – the post as a whole is a reaction to the concept of a “Johnlock Conspiracy,” but the part I’m referencing in particular is the last three paragraphs, where she talks about what a shame it is to reduce something as complex as human love down to dichotomies such as romantic vs. platonic. 
> 
> Thank you to [stereolightning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning) for beta reading, and to [professorfangirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lizeckhart/pseuds/professorfangirl) for the inspiration!

Sherlock’s head of riotous dark curls was bent over a microscope he’d commandeered, as usual, in the lab at Bart’s. The hunched set of his shoulders was clearly trying to communicate that he was very busy with very important things and not to be disturbed. But he was distracted, Molly could tell.

“Sherlock, are you okay?” she asked, and then could have kicked herself. Right, like Sherlock Holmes was ever going to answer a question like that.

Sherlock didn’t even bother to look up. “ _Busy_ , Molly,” he drawled, in that rich baritone that still made her go a little wobbly-kneed, no matter how much she really, really wished it didn’t.

“It’s just –” Molly continued, because apparently this was going to be one of those times when she couldn’t stop talking even if she wanted to, “I know John’s getting married really soon, and I know that must be a bit strange, right? I mean, Mary’s lovely, she’s really lovely, but it still makes things different for you, because it used to be just you and John, but now it’s you and John and – right. No, I’ll stop talking. Sorry. Sorry.” Her hands were twisting in front of her, and with a great effort she made them stop.

Sherlock’s head swivelled and his icy eyes pierced her. “Molly Hooper, _what_ are you drivelling on about?”

Molly bit her lip. “Nothing. Nothing. Just – I had some friends like that? At uni?”

Great, and now she was talking in questions. Molly took a steadying breath and reminded herself that it didn’t matter. Sherlock was going to think she was an idiot regardless, so it didn’t matter what she said. And this, actually, was a thing she very much wanted to say to him.

“These two blokes, I mean, who were friends of mine,” she pushed on, determinedly relaxing her hands and dropping them to her sides. “They were best friends, completely inseparable. It was like they both always had to be involved in everything the other one did. We used to joke about them, we called them ‘life partners’ because you could imagine them staying like that, that close, for the rest of their lives, though not in a – I mean, they were both straight. Not that there’s anything wrong with – but anyway.”

 _Breathe, Molly_.

“And they’re both married now, I think, but I know they still love each other. That’s my point, really. There are a lot of ways to love someone, and they’re not – they’re not mutually exclusive. Having one kind doesn’t make another kind stop existing.”

Sherlock was still staring at her like she was speaking an alien language. Which, to him, Molly supposed, she was. When did Sherlock Holmes ever use the word “love,” except to describe a weakness of lesser mortals, one to which he prided himself on being immune?

She struggled to find other words to express what she meant. But what came out was, “It’s not just about who you’re sleeping with!”

Sherlock blinked, twice, in rapid succession. At least she had his attention, then.

Molly bit her lip.

“I think, it’s just –” she began. “We’re always hearing that there’s only one relationship that matters, you know? Find The One, marry them, the end. But I love lots of people. I love my mum, and I loved my dad before he died – I still love him, actually – and I love my cat and I love my friends, and I don’t stop loving them just because I start dating someone. In fact, I usually love my friends more than the person I’m dating, although, wait, maybe that’s not really my point… But, what I’m trying to say is, I’ve got a best friend I’ve known since primary school, and she might actually be the most important person in the world to me. And that doesn’t have to change unless we decide it does.”

She bit her lip again, then kept biting it, so that there might actually be a chance she would stop talking now.

“You think I love John,” Sherlock said. His voice seemed to have dropped an additional octave, and Molly shivered. He was scanning her with those alien eyes, like there was some hidden aspect of her he hadn’t deduced yet, and he was puzzled as to how he’d managed to miss it. Molly planted her feet more firmly and forced herself to keep looking at him. Sherlock didn’t break eye contact for a moment. “Why do you think I love John?”

“Why do you think you _don’t_?” Molly retorted. “I mean, I’m not saying you want to…to kiss him. Or maybe you do, I don’t know. But you look at him like everything else revolves around him. And that’s…that’s okay. It’s really beautiful, actually. I – I saw. When you thought you were going to die, all that time you were making those plans and preparing everything, all you could think about was John.” Her voice wobbled, and she steadied it. “And you can call it whatever you choose, of course, but if that’s not – if that’s not _love_ , Sherlock, then I don’t know what is.”

She’d ended up staring at her feet, somehow, so she made herself lift her head again and meet Sherlock’s eyes. They bored into her, like he could see not just all the way through her, but through everything that stood behind her as well, her whole life, her parents’ lives, everything that had come together to make her, Molly Hooper, going all the way back through time.

 _This_ was what it was like to have Sherlock’s full attention, she thought. Followed in short order by, _If this is what it’s like, then there are no words for how brave John Watson is._

“Interesting,” Sherlock rumbled, his eyes still drilling into Molly.

“I know you think I’m utterly daft now,” Molly said, compelling her voice to sound brave. “Well, even more so than before, anyway. But I just wanted to say. That there’s more than one kind of love, or – or, affection, or whatever you want to call it. And I’m going to go now. I’ll go get some coffee, or something, and I’ll let you get on with your work.”

Sherlock blinked once, his eyelids lowering in strangely slow motion, then he returned to staring at her. Molly wondered, if there were aliens – which of course there weren’t, but if there were – then if this was maybe what it would feel like when they scanned your brain.

“You offer an interesting perspective,” Sherlock said, his voice like a case study in how to speak in a perfectly neutral tone. “Enjoy your…” – he seemed to search for the right term – “coffee break.”

Now it was Molly who blinked at him. “Um. Thanks.”

Right. She would get herself a coffee, and she would be leisurely about drinking it, and maybe by the time she returned to the lab Sherlock would have disappeared again, like the slightly magical apparition he was.

She ducked her head and shuffled towards the door, focusing on getting out of the room with a minimum of further embarrassment, as behind her Sherlock returned to being very busy with very important things.

But a couple paces short of the door, Molly stopped and glanced back at him. His shoulders and neck made one taut line, where he bent over the microscope. But where before he’d looked imposing, in his beautiful suit and his air of haughty brilliance, now the sight of him tugged at Molly’s heart. Adrift there at his microscope in the otherwise empty lab, he looked somehow very young. Molly wondered suddenly what he’d been like as a child, if he’d ever let his mother kiss and cuddle him, or if he’d sprung into the world fully formed, already disdainful of the foibles of the less perfect mortals around him. It took her breath away, thinking how lucky Sherlock was to have found John. Whatever it was that they were to each other.

Molly watched Sherlock a moment longer, then slipped silently out into the corridor, the lab door swinging shut behind her.

 


End file.
